


Convergence-verse

by beetle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, Post: s05e22 Not Fade Away
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 03:55:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just read the damn thing, don't make me dance to your tawdry little 'Summary'-tune . . . okay, okay . . . Connor and Spike immediately after the events of Not Fade Away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Point of Convergence

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The amount of not mine these characters exude is both intimidating and sexy.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Set post-NFA by mere hours.

"We'll be safe here, for now. They won’t be able to track us through this storm." Connor says, his voice gone flat in the stale, dusty air. He's felt many things since the return of Steven's memories, but very rarely has he felt safe. And that was before the giant clusterfuck Angel pulled off tonight.  
  
But here . . . the one place he was ever completely happy. . . .  
  
He tamps those other memories down for the moment. He’s got more immediate concerns, like a soaking wet, newly-human ex-vampire, quietly going into shock. Like hoards of things that  _had_ to have been portalled in from the Quor’toth, to a beast bent on ending the life of the aforementioned soaking wet, newly-human ex-vampire, and anyone sheltering him.  
  
“Sit,” Connor snaps, when Spike shows no signs of moving out of the cramped entryway. A firm Monster-Boy shove sends the ex-vampire stumbling to the makeshift bed, where he collapses in a huge puff of dust--  
  
And lays asprawl, face down like the dead man he--until so recently--was. Progress, of a sort.  
  
Spike’d been strangely pliant just out of the alley. He’d run when Connor said, stopped when Connor said. The only thing he  _wouldn't_  do is move more than a foot away from Connor.  
  
Not even Monster-Boy shoves had kept Spike away for longer than a few seconds. He'd come sidling back, like a half-drowned albino rat, all red miserable eyes and wet—everything. Afraid to touch or cling, but obviously wanting to do both.   
  
The part of Connor that's Steven Holtz is disgusted by this degeneration from what Spike was, to what he is.   
  
But the part of Steven that's Connor Reilly has fought every barrage of:  _he's useless, save yourself_ , and kept the shivering wreck of a man with him—carried him when he couldn’t run, even though Spike’s just one of many burdens, heaped on their shoulders by guilt, by Angel.   
  
 _But who saves someone's life, then leaves them on their own to die?_  Connor had reasoned, with all the righteous indignation a well-raised, suburban teenager could bring to bear on the situation.  _What was the point of saving him at all, then?_  
  
That, coupled with Spike's frightened, shell-shocked eyes had cowed Steven into a stubborn, sullen silence in the back of their shared headspace.   
  
For little awhile, it was almost like being a whole person again, instead of two people vying for the same space in one life. Then Steven's insistence on going to ground until morning had made too much sense to be ignored.   
  
The museum was the last place he'd had felt safe, and the last place anyone but Angel--and a bunch of very dead evil lawyers--would think to look for him.  
  
And now, even Angel's dead. The kind of dead that doesn't rescue helpless blondes from demons.  
  
Connor can't help frowning at the untidy pile of black, white and platinum sprawled on the bed.  
  
 _Like father, like son_ , Steven whispers in the back of his mind, and tries to curve Connor's lips in the smug, uncharitable smirk that’s characteristic of only one of them. Tries, fails, then laughs. _With or without Vale's spell, we just can't pass up Angel's cast-offs._    
  
"Back in your cage, Monster-Boy," Connor mutters aloud. Spike rolls onto his back and sits up. Watches Connor warily for few seconds.  
  
”Only one of us can be barmy at a time, mate," he apologizes, then lays back down with a sigh. "Reckon it isn't your turn, just yet."  
  
"You're not crazy, just--"  _Self-pitying, cowardly, worthless_  "--in shock. You've had a long night. We both have. But we're safe . . . for now." Connor reiterates, though he doubts he's convincing either of them. "And when it's light out, we're gonna get out of LA. Head northeast."   
  
No agreement or disagreement, just that too-silent silence.   
  
(Having only met Spike the one time previously, Connor feels he knows enough about him to know that silence-- _this_  type of silence--isn't at all normal.   
  
Then again, neither is the heartbeat and shivering.)   
  
Connor has a feeling that if he'd been Angel, announcing  _their_  plans in the same my-will-be-done way, logic bedamned, Spike would’ve have stirred himself to argue—or at least ridicule Angel down a peg.   
  
Probably. But now, Connor'll never know for sure.   
  
In the meantime, he drifts around the attic. It's familiar, cluttered, dirty . . . somehow  _homey_. It triggers memories that belong to another boy, one who, in his heart of hearts, would always be Steven Holtz.  
  
This attic has seen Steven lose his virginity--a hazy, perfect memory flavored with the scents of dust and fading orchids, rotting wood and brimstone . . . tainted only by the knowledge of the grief and death that would follow. But he can still feel Cordy's smooth skin sliding across his own like a revelation, her mouth everywhere, burning like the doom that rained down around them.   
  
All of her had been a cry of welcome and desire, from the hands that clawed their ownership into his back, to the heels that drummed slow rhythms on his lower back.   
  
She was everything Steven had ever wanted and suspected he'd never get, every sinful dream he’d had ever had, and forgotten upon waking, surrounded by the scents of his own pheromones, sweat and come.   
  
Connor falters at the edge of the gulf between two immeasurably different lives.   
  
Unlike Steven Holtz, Connor Reilly's first time was much less dramatic, much more mundane. Eons of planning certainly hadn’t gone into it, nor had the outcome been the birth of a god. The gir's name was Diane Murchison, and she was his best friend's sister, home from Northwestern for the holidays. At sixteen, he’d been four younger than her, and since then, he’d assumed his attraction to dark-eyed older women was because of her.   
  
Just recently, of course, he's learned otherwise.   
  
And, pretty as she'd been, Diane couldn't hold a candle to Cordy. Her skin didn't glow--sometimes literally--and her smile wasn't as big or bright.   
  
The world didn't end, then begin again in  _Diane Murchison_ 's arms. . . .   
  
No, nothing has ever felt so perfectly right as being with Cordy did. Still does.   
  
 _You're just hurting us both. Why are you doing this?_ Connor wonders. Never has having two sets of memories—another whole  _person_  rattling around the walls of his skull been more painful or confusing. And that's saying a lot.  _I understand how much you loved her, I do. But we can't do this. Now isn’t the time, even if this_ is _the place. I’m sorry._  
  
 _No . . . now isn't the time,_  Steven agrees, subsiding. Connor's prepared for arguments, for denials, for anything but weary assent and a creepy sensation of memories being carefully smoothed, then tucked away, like old photographs.  
  
Spike suddenly bolts up, his eyes wide and darting all around the dim, junky space. "I think. . . ." he trails off, his face scrinching up like he's going to  _throw_  up. "I  _think_ \--"   
  
 _Ah, Christ. What, now?_  "Are you oka--"  
  
Spike sneezes violently. It's Looney Tunes-ish in volume, force and spray, rocking the bed and further mussing Spike's hair.  
  
In the wake of the sneeze, Spike's face is a perfect mask of horrified surprise, and he seems to be almost near tears. But when it's obvious that another sneeze isn't forthcoming, he laughs shortly.   
  
"That'd be Consumption, then." His voice is too calm, the voice of a man hanging on by his fingernails, and when he lies back down, he practically curls up in a ball.  
  
Connor has a few puzzled moments of  _wtf?_ \--wracks his brain, then laughs. "Dude--of all the things to be worried about at this point in time--you do  _not_  have TB!"   
  
"Is that so?" He can make out Spike's half-hearted sneer easily in the shadows and dim, shifting light. "Didn't realize Stanford had a medical school."   
  
"Yeah, well, it does." For all the good that'll do Connor, now. "And kindly Dr. Connor says you don't have TB. But you  _are_  gonna catch a cold if you don't at least take the duster off. It's soaked."   
  
Connor doesn't know if it's the dust, Steven's memories, this  _place_ , which, after nearly two years, still smells faintly of Cordy's perfume . . . but his voice is softer, kinder than he means it to be, even though at the moment, all he feels is depressed and resentful--at Spike, at himself. At Steven, still sniggering in the back of his mind.  
  
At Angel, who'd left him this-- _this_ , to take care of. . . .  
  
Connor hangs his head and seriously considers just walking away. Leaving Spike’s survival to fate, or the Powers, or whoever looks after the helpless now that Angel doesn’t.  
  
But the moment passes, and Connor straightens up, squaring his shoulders against exhaustion that’s purely emotional.  
  
 _If he's mine to take care of, I guess I'd better get started on that._  "Get up, Spike."   
  
A disagreeable sound that's too tired to be a snort. "Why?" But Spike pushes himself up and to his feet without waiting for an answer. A fluid shrug, and the duster slides to the floor with a sticky-wet slither . . . a puddle of midnight around his booted feet. Without it, Spike looks small, naked and defenseless. His pale arms are all over goosebumps and he's shivering hard enough that he actually appears to be vibrating.   
  
"Maybe I should go out, find you some warmer, dryer clothes. . . ." Connor says doubtfully, already looting Steven's memories of the area: which shops were easiest to get in and out of, which apartments. But Spike seems alarmed at the suggestion of separation, crossing his arms and looking down at his feet.   
  
"Cold doesn't bother me much." The fact that he's tucking his hands up under his arms doesn't really support that statement "Never has. I'm--used to it."   
  
"Bullshit.  _Vampire-you_  was used to the cold." Connor reaches out, hesitates, then puts his hands on Spike's arms and starts rubbing. Spike's not dead man-cold, but he's nowhere near living man-warm. His skin lacks the tensile, dolphin-like smoothness Connor remembers sliding under his knuckles in the midst of a hundred fights with a hundred vampires. The pulse under it--slow, steady and strong--is downright disturbing. To the both of them, he senses. " _Human-you_  is probably gonna wind up in Intensive Care, dosed to the eyeballs on Isoniazid."   
  
Spike's reply is an ambiguous silence--he either isn't listening or doesn't care. His eyes are dark, and unfocused on the point just above Connor's shoulder, and if he keeps biting his lip like that, he's gonna need stitches. Connor sighs. "Isoniazid is used to treat people who’ve contracted TB. Get it?"   
  
That look of alarm crosses Spike's face again, sharpening his features and widening his spaced-out eyes. "Consumption killed Father. Mother had it before I killed her . . .  _I_  probably would've died of it, if not for Dru." A faint, sad smile that briefly makes Spike look every year of his true age. "Be just like them, wouldn't it? Be just like the PTB to play such a cruel joke?"   
  
"Look, there's nothing wrong with you--except maybe a head cold. Which isn't to say it won't _turn into_  something worse, if you don't help me take care of you.”  
  
The sad smile widens fractionally. “What does it matter? I’m fucked, mate. Royally so.”   
  
“You are if you don't start giving a shit."   
  
No response. Connor's hands make curiously loud whist-whist-ing sounds as he tries to rub some warmth back into Spike's arms. It occurs to him that keeping Spike is a two-man job, and they’re currently one man short, because the other man? Is cruising down a four lane super-highway in Checking-Out Land, getting farther away from reality with every passing mile.   
  
 _Look at him. He doesn't want to be here, doesn't want to be alive._  Steven's as close as a breath on the back of Connor's neck, as  _forward_  as he can be without assuming control of their body. _He's worse than useless, he's a liability. It'd be a mercy to kill him._    
  
Steven says this without mockery, or cruelty: this is fact, not opinion. But it's a fact Connor's not ready to accept without a fight.   
  
He lets his hands tighten on Spike's arms until Spike winces and, finally, is forced to look him in the eyes. That annoyingly absent stare is now flecked with anger.   
  
For the first time since the alley, Spike seems present and accounted for. But Connor . . . Connor is at a distance behind his own eyes, behind  _Steven_ , who's had enough of mincing around Spike's selfish disconnect.   
  
"One of the things humans--most humans—have to worry about is getting ill.  _Mortally_  ill. You _can_  get sick, now, Spike." Steven can feel the strain his grip is causing on Spike' muscles, the way they quiver in protest. There'll be brusies in the morning--for many mornings after. Something long denied within their divided soul sits up and takes interest in the proceedings. "You can get weak, slow us down, get us caught. Get us dead. You wanna wind up like Angel?"   
  
That makes an impact. There's something kindling in Spike's eyes, and Connor wonders if Spike had actually seen Angel get dusted. Steven, however, doesn't know and doesn't care. Dead is dead, and the  _how_  doesn't matter, even if the  _who_  sometimes does.   
  
Spike gasps, the anger in his eyes changing. Whether to the neurotic's fear of pain and death, or the beginnings of every animal's basic instinct is another distinction Steven has neither interest in, nor time for.  
  
"You're hurting me--let go!"   
  
Connor hadn't quite realized how hard they were squeezing until that hissed out plea. But Steven had--has, after all, known his own strength for a lifetime longer.   
  
"Make me," he murmurs in low, threatening tones. The thought of bruises on Spike's pallid arms, like bracelets--like territory marked--is both unsettling and compelling. Spike isn't trying to pull away, despite the threat or the pain. In fact he's leaning closer, like a pale, demented flower toward a distant sun.   
  
 _Well, yeah. Until a couple hours ago, he_ was _a vampire._    
  
Connor shrinks away from Steven’s dark, reptilian-dry satisfaction.   
  
"Make it quick, if not painless," Spike says softly, going limp and resigned. And Steven is about to do just that--about to snap Spike's neck and be done with this farce. He'll have a hard enough time getting out of Los Angeles unnoticed without a basket-case former vampire--possibly with TB--hanging off his arm like a sickly lover.   
  
Whether Wolfram & Hart get him, or sickness and age do, Spike  _will_  die. The only point up for debate is  _sooner_  or  _later_.  
  
Better to have done with it now. It really would be a mercy--  
  
 _That's enough._  Connor does something within his own mind that feels like upper-cutting someone, only . . . he's the puncher  _and_  the punchee. He drives fist after mental fist into his corpus callosum like a warning, like a hurt-shaped wedge driven between the two distinct parts of his self.  
  
It's a trick Connor's picked up in the weeks since Steven came screaming back into his mind, complete with all kinds of baggage that was too creepy and depressing to examine closely.  
  
Tears of surprise and pain spring to his eyes and double his vision. Connor's no doctor--and never will be, now--but he's pretty sure that if he does it enough times, he'll put them both in vegetative state. But that's all the subtlety Steven seems to understand.  _I've seen your idea of mercy, Monster-Boy. Back the hell off._  
  
Though he’s never seen his face when he and the evil twin are dukin' it out, it must be a sight. There’s something resembling curiosity on Spike’s face, and his eyes are knowing--understanding, even.   
  
"There's a monster in you,” he says. Something too grim and rueful to be a smile twists his grey, bitten lips. “It  _is_  you, and it wanted to kill me.  _You_  wanted to kill me, I could see it in your eyes. So why didn’t you?"   
  
No fear, now, just that intense, intent curiosity.   
  
"Don’t stare at me. I’m not a fucking sideshow." He shoves Spike toward the bed again, before the urge to do real damage is irresistible. Before what passes for Steven's reason rallies to drown out his own. "You may not care whether you live or die, but I do. I do."   
  
Spike sits on the bed, watching Connor out of the corners of his eyes. A few seconds later, he pulls one of the dusty, moth-eaten blankets around his shoulders, and bruised arms. It’s more common sense than Connor would’ve given him credit for.   
  
“I care,” he says, and it hangs in the air, naked and sad. He hitches the blanket higher. “Of course I bloody care. But I'm worse than useless, now. If that hasn’t already become bloody obvious, it soon will. I’ll slow you down, and we’ll  _both_  die. Alone, at least you have a chance."  
  
Steven’s words coming out of Spike’s mouth. The absolute  _last_  thing Connor needs to hear, right now. “I saved your life. You’re my responsibility, now.”  
  
“Saw that in a fortune cookie, did you?” Spike’s tone is gentle, teasing. It makes Connor feel like a kid caught masquerading as a superhero in filched bed linens. “Bein’ a hero’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you know?”  
  
Gunn’s gone.   
  
Wesley’s gone.   
  
Fred’s gone.   
  
Cordy’s . . . gone.  
  
Angel, is gone, too.   
  
And Spike--the part of him that was brave, that fought back and took no prisoners--is way gone. What’s left of him is just enough to remind Connor of how completely his other life, his  _first_  life, has been decimated.  
  
Connor knows that being a hero is  _nothing_  like it’s cracked up to be.  
  
His own jacket--also a sodden, uncomfortable mess--hits a pile of crates near the window with an offended plop. “You should rest while you have the chance. You may not get another for awhile.”   
  
There doesn’t seem to be anything to say, after that.  
  


*

  
  
There's precious little space for thinking, let alone pacing, but Connor is definitely pacing.  
  
Sitting silently on the bed, hands folded neatly on his lap, Spike's eyes follow Connor ceaselessly, shuttered by the occasional blink. Outside, the still rain beats down as if God--some God, or other--is trying to cleanse the world. The sound of it is merciless, continuous, eventually white noise.  
  
Connor’s nerves are too keyed-up to allow sitting down, and it's not wise to be close to Spike. Not with the lees of Steven's anger--and that creepy fascination with bruising Spike still swirling within him.   
  
Not when the Monster-Boy himself is lowering over Connor's consciousness like the threat of a migraine, or a hurricane.   
  
He can feel Spike's eyes on him: watchful, waiting, assessing, but oddly detached. It's almost like visits to his great-aunt Jean's house, and the taxidermic nightmare that was perfectly preserved Fluffies, all in various places and poses, light bouncing off their glass eyes to make a mockery of life. All watching Connor like he's holding back a plausible explanation for why they're dolls in some crazy old bat’s livingroom.  
  
Spike's situation is the reverse: he  _was_  a dead thing, preserved by dark magic, and a demon. Now he's alive, though his eyes tell a different story.  
  
Connor paces, even though pacing doesn't do jack when all he wants to do is go back to his dorm room and hide under his bed. When all Steven wants is to get his hands on something,  _anything_ and squeeze until it's dead.  
  
”I knew it wasn't me," Spike says as Connor passes him for the umpteenth time. His voice is vaguely defensive, but shaky, like a guilty man in a confessional.  
  
"What?" Connor's own voice isn't much better, cracking up into pre-pubescent registers. He clears his throat. "What's wrong, now?”  
  
"Angel should've been their bloody champion," Spike says angrily, barely audible over the squeak and scuff of restless sneakers on the floor boards. “Not me.”  
  
Connor pauses to look at him, and catches flashes of anger, grief and confusion on Spike's face, swimming to the surface of sea-dark eyes before Spike glances away, into the many shadows.   
  
"Deep down, I accepted that. No matter what I said, no matter how many times we fought over his bloody destiny, like two dogs over a piece of gristle." He shakes his head. "I  _knew_  that it wasn't me."   
  
"Shows what  _you_  know." Connor rubs his temples. The impending Monster-Boy storm still rumbles ominously, but is retreating a little. Steven doesn't care for destiny--hates it the way any child grows to hate a overbearing parent.   
  
But Connor picks up on something so obvious--and disturbing--he feels short-bus special for not realizing it sooner.   
  
"Angel--Angel made you, didn't he? Before he got the soul? He was kinda your dad, right?"  
  
There are too many emotions in Spike's eyes that Connor can't read, and isn't sure he should try to. "Was a bit more complicated than that, but he was . . . family."  
  
 _Well,_ that _takes on new and bad touch-y meanings when it comes to vampires. Sheesh._  "So that sorta makes you my . . . brother." The fine point Connor really wanted to avoid putting on things. "Sorta."  
  
There’s a wry smile in Spike’s voice. "Sorta. If you choose to look at it that way." Inoffensive, equanimous--irritatingly indifferent.   
  
"I choose." Off Spike's raised eyebrow, Connor shrugs defensively. "You asked why I didn't let Monster-Boy kill you. Angel gave up a lot to give me a normal life, so I kinda owe him. You--and I guess me--are all that's left of his family. He loved us, and he’d want us to go on."  
  
The sharp look Spike gives him makes Connor's face burn, and it's on the tip of his tongue to apologize for assumptions made, bounds overstepped, but the look softens into something that's could be guilt, or horror, or just the precursor of another sneeze.  
  
”Angel and I were . . . Angel and I, Connor," Spike says heavily. Connor's name sounds strange in his low, smooth voice. Sounds like an adult trying to reason with another adult, not an adult trying to sway a recalcitrant child. "All this . . . it's nothing to do with you. You don't owe Angel anything, and you're not--bound to me, in any way."  
  
In the vaults of Connor’s memories, in a special room of its own, is a looped reel of Spike's wet, frightened face, corpse-pale in the bright flashes between thunderings, one hand outstretched for help, an army of monsters at his back.   
  
He remembers how light Spike'd felt, how easy to carry, how fragile.   
  
Connor’d run for a mile carrying Spike before he finally got winded, finally thought to go to ground. Even Steven's adamant lack of concern for anyone but himself hadn't touched Connor till the relative safety of the museum.  
  
In the heat of the moment, all that had mattered was getting Spike somewhere hidden, or at least defensible, until daylight.  
  
Not bound?   
  
Yeah, right.  
  
"I  _do_  . . . I am," Connor says. That's the  _only_  certain thing in his life, right now: his connection, however uncomfortable and unwanted, with Spike. "You're as good as dead on your own. The only way I can keep you alive is to keep you with me."  
  
"For how long?"   
  
Connor meets Spike's eyes. "Till I'm sure we're safe."   
  
Spike takes a deep breath, and Connor's sure it rattles a tiny bit. "And when will that be?"   
  
"Well, let's see. Wolfram & Hart are gonna be looking for you—for  _us_  for a long time. Probably for the rest of our lives. The Powers That Be have a higher champion kill ratio than Wolfram & Hart, so the likelihood that we'll make it out of this museum alive is only slightly less probable than us making it out of Los Angeles at all. Assuming that we somehow manage both those things, there's still looking over our shoulders, never staying in any place for too long, trying to keep a few steps ahead--" Connor pauses mid-rant, frowning.  
  
There's been a gradual easing of tension in his mind that normally means Steven's nursing his wounds and resentments in the back of Connor's brain, like a mental patient in a very small, dark corner of a large asylum.  
  
But it seems two months together hasn't taken away Monster-Boy's annoying way of surprising the hell out of Connor. Steven's not back there sulking, or plotting. He’s planning escape routes from the city--from SoCal altogether.   
  
These plans are made to accommodate their newly-human traveling companion   
  
Somehow, Spike'd had been quietly moved to the "us" side of Steven's simplistic us / them worldview. A place previously held by only two people, both of who are now dead. Connor can't pin the moment it happened--and Steven is suspiciously mum on the subject, ignoring Connor's surprise in favor of wheel-spinning--but strangely enough, Spike fits there.   
  
Not perfectly, but pretty well.   
  
Fits better than Holtz or Cordelia ever did, which really isn’t saying much.   
  
"When will I be sure we're safe?" Connor smiles, and there's enough of Steven in it that it may technically be a smirk. "When evil is completely vanquished forever."   
  
"Oh," Spike says softly. "Right, then. So not for a few weeks, at least?" He lets out a breath in something that sounds enough like a laugh that Connor joins him. At least until Spike's laugh turns into a nagging cough.   
  
Connor can barely hear it over the coughing, but it's there, alright: a slight rattle in Spike's lungs that means he's heading for a doozy of chest cold.   
  
 _Beautiful_ , he thinks tiredly. Steven merely adjusts their plans, moves  _cold medicine_  further up the priority list, just behind  _food_ , and just before a hastily added  _fake ids_  added by Connor.   
  
"Oh, bloody hell--" Spike makes a strangled snorting sound, his face a rictus of disgust. "I've got a runny nose--and it's running back down my  _throat!_ "   
  
He sounds so revolted, so helplessly horrified-- _so_  like he’s about to retch--that Connor stops the almost hysterical laugh that wants to bubble up out of him. Clears his throat and gallantly tears the left sleeve off his button-down.   
  
"Here. Take it."   
  
When Spike continues to look horrified, Connor rolls his eyes.   
  
"I left the Kleenex in my other museum, okay? So it's this, or your arm, pal."   
  
The sleeve is yanked out of Connor's hand before he finishes the word  _arm_. After a moment of hesitation, Spike sighs and blows his nose half-heartedly. It's a pathetic sound, considering who Spike is--was. It's helpless and lost.   
  
It's human.   
  
"S'dot workig!"   
  
So is that petulant distress. Connor has to fight another Steven-smirk. "Then blow harder."   
  
Spike's eyes narrow; he thinks Connor's making fun. And Connor is, but just a little. "Makes my head hurt and my eyes throb."   
  
"Better out than in. Unless you  _wanna_  develop TB--"   
  
Improbably, Spike pales. He takes a deep breath, like a man marching off to his own execution, and blows  _hard_.   
  
Connor feels like a jerk, but only a little.   
  
 _I bet he didn't used to be this squeamish when he was drinking the blood of babies,_  Steven notes, with the mental equivalent of shaking his head in wonder.   
  
 _Hey--even monsters can change._    
  
Steven’s surprise is almost a physical thing . . . then Connor's other has retreated far enough and deep enough, he only registers as a watchful presence at the back edges of consciousness.   
  
And Jesus, Spike's blowing so hard, he's actually honking like a flock of geese. Nasally, but somewhat less congested geese.   
  
"Um. You might wanna stop now," Connor suggests, and Spike does stop, gratefully. He wads the sleeve up and shoves it in his pocket with relief that's all out of proportion to putting away a used make-shift hankie.   
  
"Can't believe I ever wanted this," he mutters, sniffling and hitching the blanket back up around him again. His face is still apoplectic-red from his exertions. "Forgot about the mucus and what-all that comes with bein' a real boy."   
  
"There's more to being human than head colds, y'know." Connor's very aware of the irony of a monster that used to be a man, explaining the upside of humanity to a man who used to be a monster.   
  
"It's weird--and gross--'cause it's new, but . . . you'll get used to it, in time. Even the snot. The secret is remembering that mucus is your friend."   
  
Another laugh and this time, there's barely any rattle. It also doesn't end in a coughing fit.   
  
"God, you remind me of a bloke I used to know. He . . . oh, bugger me," Spike exclaims at the end of a jaw-cracking yawn that leaves him starry-eyed and shocked.   
  
In that moment, he barely looks old enough to drink, let alone kill, or die.   
  
"Tired?" It's a stupid question, and out before Connor can stop it.   
  
"Yeah. Too scared to sleep, though. Too cold."  
  
Connor crosses the small space in a few strides and sits on the bed. Spike edges toward the center to give him room, then tenses when Connor follows and puts an arm around him.   
  
This close, Spike smells like blood and sweat, leather and smoke.  
  
"Sit still," Connor murmurs, gently, but insistently. And Spike does--as still as he can sit, shivering that hard. Connor pulls him closer, and drags the other blanket--even more raggedy than the first, but better than nothing--over them both.  
  
"My, but you know how to make a girl feel pampered." But the sarcasm is laced with exhaustion and Spike's obviously fighting another yawn.   
  
"You might as well get some sleep. The sun won't be up for a couple hours."   
  
"What about you?"   
  
"I've gone six days without sleep, tracking pack of Jendrakar across the Yluw Plains . Not to mention I got through finals week on, like, three cat naps and a half-pound of chocolate covered espresso beans."   
  
And by the end of finals week, Connor had been hallucinating some pretty weird stuff. Quor'toth stuff. But when he finally got a chance to really  _sleep_ , it was dreamless, and twenty hours deep. "I'll be fine. I can sleep when--"   
  
"We're safe?" Spike finishes for him, his voice and eyes almost warm with amusement. Connor blushes, looks away. It’s weird sitting this close to a guy he’s not fighting with or getting stoned with--weird being this close to eyes that aren’t a girl’s.   
  
But there's nothing in this place to stare at that isn't junk, shadows or Spike, and he finds himself once again meeting the other man’s eyes. “Safe-er, anyway."   
  
The silence stretches, isn’t precisely uncomfortable. Spike’s the one who looks away, this time, frowning and biting his lip. "Jendrakar, hunh? I take it they're good eatin'."   
  
"Uh . . . they’re great, if you like the taste of necro-slime and sulphuric acid." Spike starts shivering harder, and Connor realizes he’s silently laughing. Pride stung, Steven darts  _forward_ to say: "Picture a giant, mutant leopard-wolf thing that's mean, rabid, smart and poisonous to the touch. With ten inch claws, and razor-sharp spikes and scales, and you’ll be picturing the things the Jendrakar hunt."   
  
The silent laughter stops, and Spike is looking at him again, respect bordering on awe in his eyes. "And you hunted the Jendrakar for fun."   
  
Connor can still taste the blasted, furnace air of the Quor'toth--remembers what it felt like to race across a plain of stone and sand, feared and unfearing, driving demons and monsters before him like a cleansing fire. Remembers how black and white life was, once upon a time, when evil _looked_  evil.  
  
Remembers what it was to be the Tro-clon. "Every chance I got."   
  
For awhile, neither of them say anything. Spike starts to relax, his head slowly drooping onto Connor's shoulder.   
  
"I'm suddenly liking our chances of survival a lot better. Well,  _your_  chances, anyway."   
  
Mildly startled--Spike’s breathing had been so even, Connor thought he was asleep--it takes a moment to reboot. “You had it right, the first time. Anything that wants you is gonna have to go through me. And I think it'll find that I’m not . . . that . . . go-through-able.”   
  
The response to that is a chuckle, bitter, and soft as silk. “If Angel hasn't earned the right to live, I don't see how I could have. We weren’t the best of friends, but even I can say he deserved a hell of a lot better than what he got. He deserved to still be here.”  
  
"Yeah, well. Life sucks. Welcome back." That’s all Connor can think of to say. Because it's true, and because there's nothing else he could say that would sum up everything that’s happened to the both of them.   
  
Spike sneezes again, and starts to wipe his nose on the back of his arm before he remembers the torn, soggy sleeve and makes use of it. Then he shoves it back into his pocket and looks at his scraped, dirty hands.  
  
"Thanks, mate.”  
  
Connor shrugs uncomfortably. “I’ve got a spare, if you need it." He flashes his other sleeve, even though he knows that isn't what Spike means. “And a t-shirt, under this one.”  
  
“At the rate I’m going, I might just have to take you up on that,” Spike makes that ridiculous snorfling sound again. “Some bloody champion. I can't seem to stop sniffling and sneezing, I’m _freezing_ \--and I can hear  _it_  beating in my ears loud enough to drive me mad--dunno how you lot stand it all."  
  
"We just . . . do."  
  
Silence descends again, unbroken but for the white noise of the storm, and Spike’s occasional sigh. Eventually, his head drops onto Connor’s shoulder again. He’s asleep before the shivering and sniffling finally ease.  
  
They are, neither of them, warm, or particularly comforted.   
  
But they'll do, for now, Connor supposes.


	2. Our Lives in Exile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine at all.

  
“What y'doin', mate?”  
  
  
Connor doesn't look away from the small gap in the threadbare curtains. The night outside seems still, but . . . things are never what they seem. For example: it  _seems_  as if Wolfram & Hart aren't making even an effort to find them.  
  
  
For another: it  _seems_  as if the Powers That Be have been mum for the eight days since they escaped the alley.  
  
  
Connor rubs dry, tired eyes briefly, one at a time, so that the motor-lodge parking lot is never out of sight.  
  
  
“What I do every night. Keep watch.”  
  
  
A sluggish rustle of scratchy sheets as Spike sits up with a groan and a cough. His chest cold is worse than it should've been, due to lack of proper rest, and “dossing” in places that were neither clean, dry, nor warm. Heaven knows  _Spike_  doesn't know enough about being human to know he's probably got bronchitis, but Connor does. The knowledge is leaden with worry and guilt. . . .  
  
  
 _Who knew we'd live long enough for him to develop bronchitis?_  Steven contributes to already merry thoughts.  
  
  
“They're not comin' after us, mate,” Spike wheezes, his voice as scratchy as the sheets he's laying in. “Not even a little, or they'd have got us.”  
  
  
Steven comes  _forward_  for just a moment to snark. “Your faith in my ability to keep us alive is underwhelming. You're the wind beneath my wings,” Connor adds.  
  
  
Spike laughs and it rattles. “No knock to you--but I've seen firsthand what they can do, who and what the Senior Partners have at their command. If they wanted us caught, we'd be caught. If they wanted us dead . . . we'd be that, too.”  
  
  
A woman in tight, revealing clothes--completely inadequate for spring in Spokane, unless you're a working girl--staggers across the lot toward the checkout desk. Nearly breaks her ankle when one stiletto heel gets caught in a sewer grate.  
  
  
When she doesn't turn into a many-headed, many-fanged, many-clawed  _thing_  Connor sighs, and turns to the bed. In the yellow fluorescent light peeking in, Spike looks pale, jaundiced. Small, in the cheap, stolen sweats.  
  
  
Connor lets the curtain slip shut, plunging the room into darkness Spike's eyes can't penetrate. But he can see a faint, bitter smile twist Spike's dry, cracked lips.  
  
  
 _Chapstick._  Steven whispers from the back of his mind, then adds, lest Connor start thinking the Monster-Boy actually cares about someone other than himself:  _Nothing says inconspicuous like a wheezing man with bleeding lips._  
  
  
Connor almost laughs. “So what do you think happened, then? Why are we still alive?”  
  
  
Spike stretches, and his eyes seem to find Connor's in the darkness. “Because the PTB've washed their hands of us. The big battle was fought, their champion is dead. They've moved on to some other big battle in some other dimension, and the Senior Partners have moved with them.”  
  
  
“What about vengeance?” Steven demands incredulously, and Connor takes the back seat for the nonce. It's the closest to rest he's had in a week, and anyway Steven hasn't mentioned killing Spike since that night in the museum.  
  
  
“What about it, mate?” Spike settles back into the pillows once more. “For a few hours, we were the front line of an eternal war. At no point was any of this personal for the Senior Partners, or--”  
  
  
“For the Powers That Be?” Steven snarls, hands bunching into fists so tight they creak. Connor doesn't come to the front, but he's ready to.  
  
  
“No flies on you, are there?” Another rattling laugh. "We were pawns. Even those of us that got to be knights for a little while were never more than pawns. Now, we've become useless to either side."  
  
  
Steven's anger drains away, and his fists unclench. Connor relaxes, or as close as he gets these days, once more. “So you think we're perfectly safe, I suppose?”  
  
  
“Oh, no. Never that.” That twisting smile disappears completely. “There are other things out there that have grudges against us both. And once they realize the big dogs've lost interest, they're gonna come for their pound of flesh.”  
  
  
 _Fuck,_  Connor sighs, and Steven agrees completely. If Spike's right, instead of a many-pronged attack led by the same generals, it's going to be a free-for-all on their hides. But the enemy now has finite resources and manpower, which means there's a chance that a month from now might not see them both dead.  
  
  
This changes a lot of things.  
  
  
“You should rest while you can. We're in no more danger than the average human. For now.” Spike curls up on his side: a small, sickly man who, to both Steven and Connor, represents the remnants of everything they've lost, or had to walk away from.  
  
  
Whose cough isn't getting worse, but is taking far too long to get better.  
  
  
 _Bronchitis,_  Connor murmurs.  _He'll need to be on Amoxicillin for at least four days. Spokane Valley General--_  
  
  
 _No hospitals. I can steal whatever we need. Just make sure whatever I get doesn't kill him._ Steven drifts over to the bed. Watches Spike shiver and cough. Wonders if he should risk breaking into an empty room to get some extra blankets. “Are you warm enough?”  
  
  
A flash of that rueful smile as Spike breathes carefully through his rubbed-raw nose. “ _Never_ warm enough . . . why, you offerin' to come in here and  _keep me warm_ , then, mate?”  
  
  
“I . . . could. If you want,” Steven says hesitantly, frowning. Then Connor starts to snicker, and the frown becomes a glare, though Spike can't see it. “But I meant I could steal you more blankets and stuff. Yes, or no?”  
  
  
Spike sits up a bit to squint into the darkness, his eyes uselessly seeking Steven out in nearly pitch black. “I'll be fine till daylight. Don't leave me here alone.”  
  
  
“I won't,” Steven and Connor both promise, and for just a moment . . . it's like being one person. Then the moment passes and Connor's yawning his way  _back_.  
  
  
“Bloody hell, have you slept . . . at all?” Spike asks suddenly. “Since we got out of LA? No, of course you haven't. You  _wouldn't_. Well. Come on, then. Get in. I guess if you were gonna catch this, you already would've done.”  
  
  
“I never get sick,” Steven says like a threat, but sits down when Spike twitches the blankets back and moves over to give him room. Lays down stiffly, arms straight and rigid at his side while Spike arranges the linen to his liking. Then he rolls over, snugging against Steven's side, with a sigh.  
  
  
“I'd like to test that theory,” he breathes, warm and heavily on Steven's neck. His hand settles lightly on Steven's stomach. “My own personal bed-warmer . . . if you're ninety-eight point six, I'm a three-toed sloth. Are you always this hot, Monster-Boy?”  
  
  
Startled, neither Steven nor Connor can think of a reply, and for the first time ever, both of them try to slip  _back_  at the same time.  
  
  
“You  _are_  the Monster-Boy, right?” The hoarse, half asleep whisper is almost too low to hear. “Connor's murderous other half? We haven't been formally introduced, but Connor's always mutterin' about you when he's distracted.”  
  
  
Chagrin emanates from within, and Connor makes himself very small, indeed, in the back of their mind. Steven almost smirks. Tucks one hand up under his head--the one that hasn't wound itself around Spike's shoulders.  
  
  
“That's what he calls me, yeah. 'The Monster-Boy.'" Steven brushes his fingers down Spike's arm, then back up teasingly. Connor tries to burrow even deeper into their psyche, wrap himself in the darkness that Steven's grown heartily sick of. "Why? Afraid of me?”  
  
  
“Hmm. . . .” Spike's damp, feverishly hot hand slides under the hem of Steven's tee shirt, scritching and scratching up to his chest. When it stops over his heart, there's a strange flutter in his stomach. “Should I be?”  
  
  
“Not so much,” Steven says slowly, letting out his held breath in a rush, then breathing in the scent of cherry-flavored cold syrup, sweat, motel soap, and aloe-vera Kleenex. The flutters grow claws and hooks that bury themselves deep into his flesh, and cause his blood to stir restlessly.  
  
  
 _What the hell_ is _this? What are you doing?_  Drifts out from a distant corner of their being. It's a distinctly Connor-flavored thought, since Steven never worries about anything other than staying alive.  _Do you have any idea what you're getting us_  into?  
  
  
When Spike's fingers stop scritching on his skin--when the rattling wheeze eases almost imperceptibly, becomes a rattling snore, and Connor's worrisome, beehive thoughts drift to a place even Steven can't follow them--he at last closes their eyes, smiling. “Not so much.”  
  



	3. 'Twas Beauty. . . .

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Twas Beauty killed the Beast. Three ficlets for the slashthedrabble prompt #184, sleep/sleepless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Set post-NFA by one month.

  
Spike's awake, as always, when he and Steven come back from hunting.  
  
  
“You didn't have to wait up for me,” Connor says--as he does whenever he returns to find Spike sleepless and waiting in the dark of their room.  
  
  
Spike draws his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. His laser-blue eyes are serene and unreadable in the meager lamplight. “How was it, tonight?”  
  
  
“Busy. Who knew Eau Claire had so many demons? Heh, who knew Eau Claire even existed?” Steven barrels forward to say. He does that a lot, lately. At least when they're around Spike. Though when they're hunting--  
  
  
Well, then it's impossible to tell where Steven ends and Connor begins. It's like they both disappear, and all that's left is the Destroyer.  
  
  
The individualism only returns afterward. When Steven begins to miss Spike's eyes, and arms, and scent. When Connor has to painstakingly rebuild the walls that separated them so he isn't swept away in Steven's increasing infatuation.  
  
  
“You should come with us, next time. We can keep you safe,” Steven says, tossing their hunting kit at a chair and shrugging out of his clothes. After the first time they'd come back to the room covered in demon-gak--and after the resulting freak-out from Spike--they've taken care to clean up and change before getting back to the motel.  
  
  
(That chivalrous idea had been entirely Steven's, and from that moment, Connor knew the Monster-Boy was a lost cause where Spike was concerned.)  
  
  
“I think next time you should stay in. With me,” Spike adds softly, hesitantly. “Figured you'd be tired of fighting by now, anyway.”  
  
  
 _Well, fighting's my only outlet for other frustrations,_  Connor thinks ruefully, at the same time Steven slips  _back_ , and so winds up saying it aloud.  
  
  
Spike tilts his head and smiles archly. Steven groans, and their shared heart beats wildly. “What other frustrations would those be, pet?”  
  
  
Neither of them reply--because Connor clamps down on Steven hard enough to draw metaphoric blood.  
  
  
Seconds pass, and Spike's smile turns wistful. He lays down, flipping back an edge of the blankets. “Well? C'mon, then.”  
  
  
Connor reluctantly slides into bed, suppressing Steven's ridiculous sigh when Spike cuddles up against their side, one hand settling on their stomach as usual. His eyes are wide and determined, his breath soft and stuttery on their lips, and--  
  
  
 _Oh_.  
  
  
They both think it, but Steven is the one who surges  _forward_  to respond, who opens up to the clean warmth of Spike's mouth with a hungry moan.   
  
  
A moan that turns into a muffled shout as the hand on their stomach slips lower.  
  
  
“Stay in, tomorrow, Steven. Stay with me. Please,” Spike breaks the kiss to whisper, then applies his teeth to their neck as he grips and strokes. Steven bucks up into his hand.  
  
  
“Yeah,” he agrees eagerly, even as Connor retreats, rolling himself in psychic darkness as protection against the fast-approaching explosion of light. “I'll stay.”  
  
  


II

  
  
Connor's been aware since dawn, though not  _forward_.   
  
  
Spike's asleep in their arms, trusting and warm, and the Monster-Boy . . . Steven is well and truly smitten. It seems wrong to disturb either of them, and anyway, Steven would definitely fight him if he tried to take control. Fight him, and probably win.  
  
  
“You're right. I'd kick your ass,” Steven agrees, one finger ceaselessly stroking Spike's bicep, his nose pressed into Spike's hair. It's soft, and growing long enough to suggest a slight curl at the ends. “Why can't you just relax and enjoy this?”  
  
  
 _Because I'm not gay. Neither were you, last I checked._  
  
  
“Gay, straight--what's it matter? We want him, he wants us. End of story.”   
  
  
 _No!_ Not _'end of story'! Aside from the fact that we don't swing that way--he's, like, two hundred years old, newly-human, and_ literally blood kin _. . . doesn't that bother you?_  
  
  
“ _No._  What bothers me--” Steven begins, then falls silent when Spike shifts closer to them. He's half-hard against their leg, and the raw burn of Steven's desire leaches past Connor's defenses like they aren't even there.   
  
  
(Though the bronchitis has cleared up, Spike still tires easily. Steven would like nothing more than to wake him up and revisit what they'd started, but he'd sooner break his own arms than deprive Spike of rest.)  
  
  
 _What bothers me,_  he continues silently,  _is you being such a hypocrite about this. The past is the past--you're the one who's always saying that. How--it doesn't matter who we were, but who we are now--_  
  
  
Spike inhales deeply and sighs, one index finger tracing sleepy, feather-light circles around their left nipple. Steven makes a startled sound low in his throat, and Connor knows this marks the end of any semi-rational discourse between them.  
  
  
“Alright, then, love?” Spike breathes against his throat, his legs tangling with theirs as he shifts and tugs until they're on top of him. His eyes are squinty, but unguarded. Content.  
  
  
“Better, now,” Steven hisses through gritted teeth as he grinds down against Spike, who pulls them down for a kiss that starts out teasing, but grows greedy, needy. He hooks one leg over their hip.  
  
  
“Bloody hell, if I were still a vampire, I'd have you inside me right now, slick bedamned,” Spike growls, throwing his head back as Steven thrusts and slides past his balls.  
  
  
The expanse of neck bared is pale, mesmerizing even to Connor, who doesn't retreat as Steven covers it in teethmarks. Instead of saying what they're both thinking: if Spike were still a vampire, he might have been dust by their hand weeks ago. . . .  
  
  
 _Shut up, okay? Just--let me have this without hating it?_  Steven thinks as he grips Spike's hips and sits upright, taking Spike with him.  _Please--_  
  
  
Connor silently retreats, and the . . . stimulus becomes distant. Negligible, though he's forced to relinquish his toehold on their consciousness entirely when Steven comes gasping Spike's name.  
  
  
Even the darkness offers no solace.  
  
  


III

  
  
  
When Connor checks in again, it's nearly sunset.  
  
  
Steven's walking briskly down Atrium Court toward the Super 8, carrying a bag that reeks outrageously of Chinese takeout.  
  
  
“Welcome back,” he murmurs, smirking, but not giving off feelings of smirkiness. Connor doesn't even try to come  _forward._  
  
  
 _It's good to be back_ , he says, somewhat disingenuously. Then:  _I take it we're not hunting, tonight?_  
  
  
“I promised Spike we'd stay in,” Steven shrugs apologetically, and Connor subsides in the back of their consciousness, not pointing out the very obvious fact that  _he_ 'd promised Spike nothing of the kind.  
  


*

  
  
“You're quiet,” Spike says, focusing intently on his low mein. In his fingers, the chopsticks twirl and dance gracefully, collecting noodles before dropping them back in the box.  
  
  
Steven'd already finished his dinner, economically putting away food with a greasy plastic fork. Now, he's nursing a Pibb Xtra and watching Spike's hands, anticipating the rest of their night in.  
  
  
“I'm not really the chatty one,” he says distractedly. He also isn't the one who likes soda, but he drinks it now as a small concession to Connor, who's still silent and brooding at the back of his mind.  
  
  
Steven starts gathering up packets of duck and soy sauce, and stacking them according to near infinitesimal differences in weight. Doesn't stop until Spike's hand covers his own, and he looks up into tired blue eyes.  
  
  
(Connor's reassured him that it's normal for Spike to be this tired even though the bronchitis is gone. That he'd be tired, anyway, just getting used to the average human's much lower energy levels.)  
  
  
“Pet . . . are you having one of those identity crises, or something? About what we did?”  
  
  
Something about Spike's eyes or voice translates as uncertainty, and Steven squeezes his hand. “I'm glad that we're, um, lovers, now--look, I even got these--” Steven lets go of Spike's hand to grab his jacket from the back of his chair. Empties his pockets of the several tubes of lube and handfuls of condoms he'd stolen after placing their order at the  _Triple Happiness Palace_.  
  
  
Spike's eyebrows lift in surprise, and he smiles a little. “Well, I can see we've got a full night ahead of us.”  
  
  
Steven blushes, and takes Spike's hand again. Watches their fingers link together. “I just wanted to be prepared. We don't have to--we can do whatever you want.”  
  
  
When he sneaks another look up, he catches a considering look on Spike's face.  
  
  
Then the chopsticks clatter to the tabletop, as Spike reaches for the pile of condoms and lube, his eyes never leaving Steven's.   
  
  
“I want  _you_ ,” he says softly, standing up. Steven joins him wordlessly.  
  
  
It's not until Spike's a limp, damp, sated puddle of former-vampire in his arms, and Steven is, himself, drifting off to pseudo dreamland, that he remembers to thank Connor for reminding him to stop at the drugstore.  
  
  
The gruff  _yeah, whatever_  reply is at least half responsible for the smile Steven wears throughout the night.


	4. Three Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three moments in which Connor should have known he was falling in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Post-NFA by three months.

“You broke his nose,” Spike says without measurable inflection.  
  
  
Connor glares at the window, at his reflection, and doesn't answer for several miles. He can sense Spike's eyes ticking between him, and the sun-splashed highway, not lingering overlong on either. “He's fucking lucky it wasn't the rest of his skull.”  
  
  
Spike makes an incredulous noise and lays on the gas. He has no use for speed limits or the brake. “And  _we're_  fucking lucky there were no bloody cops around! Christ!”  
  
  
“Yeah, well, speaking of cops, keep it under eighty, 'kay? This ain't Indianapolis.” No reply, and Connor's not ready to give, not ready to bend, even though Spike's right. Even though Steven's MIA, buried himself deep enough that Connor couldn't find him with a hypno-therapist and a roadmap.  
  
  
Which is odd, since Steven is responsible for this whole mess, anyway. For walking with his arm around Spike as if that sort of PDA between two guys would go unnoticed in the Heartland of America. As if kissing Spike in a high-traffic area, no matter how briefly or chastely, would go unchallenged.  
  
  
Only to leave Connor holding the bag and the boyfriend while some Outraged and Upright Citizen makes his indignation known to all and sundry--  
  
  
Connor closes his eyes for a moment--feels that rage, so savage, and pure, and indistinguishable from  _joy_  spread through him, just as it'd spread through him when his fist connected with that guy's face. He wonders how Steven hasn't killed more if this is the feeling that used to drive him.  
  
  
“Look, it happened, it's over. Caput,” Connor mutters, unclenching his fists before he punctures skin. He leans his head against the passengerside window. They really ought to ditch this car tonight or the next. Though after what just happened, tonight might be better.  
  
  
Before they cross the state line might be optimal.  
  
  
Spike sighs, and it's not angry, or even annoyed, just . . . tired. Three months since the shanshu and he's still so exhausted all the time, can still easily sleep away twelve hours of any given day.  
  
  
“Christ, the two of you're worse than bloody women when it comes to givin' a bloke the silent treatment,” he grumbles, easing the car down to a snailish seventy-five. Seventy, and there the needle hangs steady. “Shall I read your mind, now, and figure out how it is that  _you_  come to be brassed off at  _me_?”  
  
  
“Hey, screw you, pal,” Connor hunches his shoulders and slouches lower. Keeps his hands unclenched on his khakis. “I don't have to explain myself to anyone. That includes you.”  
  
  
“No, you can just act out whenever you bloody like, call attention to us that we sodding well can't afford!”  
  
  
Connor snorts. “You're the one that says everyone's forgotten about us--"  
  
  
“Not everyone, and  _not_  forgot, blockhead!” The needle is rushing toward ninety, again, and Connor doesn't bother to say anything. He can take care of any ten armed state troopers. In his sleep, even. Without Steven, even. “The PTB and the Senior Partners aren't everyone, just the biggest game in town. But we've both made other enemies, haven't we? Enemies that'd like nothing more than to get their quite literal claws and fangs on us and in us. In light of that, it's hardly unreasonable for me to wanna know if you're planning any more little attention-grabbing tantrums. Just in case I, the fragile human, wanna get the hell outta dodge before--”  
  
  
“No.”  
  
  
Connor doesn't realize he's the one who's spoken, but that Spike falls silent. An ancient Plymouth ambles toward them, and by them, the first car they've seen in thirty minutes. The only something in this flat, nothing landscape.  
  
  
“I promised I'd protect you, keep you safe. You stay with me,” he says above the sudden rushing in his ears, the static fuzz in his brain. For a few moments, everything in the car and without is red, roiling darkness despite the gaudy sunset. Blood-red sky, blood-baked landscape, shot through with sulfurous greens and yellows. There are things among the rocks, hanging from and perched on the stunted, screaming trees. Things that don't sleep, and in some cases don't eat. Only kill.  
  
  
It's all death and damnation, except for the pale, startled face in the corner of his vision.  
  
  
Connor blinks, and he can hear Spike swallow, the faint creak of muscle and cartilage as he faces the road. The world seems to reverse, slip out of the nightmarish negative of itself and becomes just Oklahoma again. The needle drops to fifty-five. Forty. Spike's hands even shift to a perfect ten-two position, suggesting that at some point, he knew better.  
  
  
“Look. Steven,” he says slowly, lowly, as if testing marshy ground for stability. “ _Pet_. I know--”  
  
  
“No, you don't,” Connor says softly, feeling an unaccustomed wave of exhaustion break on him, then ebb away along with the rest of that energizing rage . . . leaving him empty and listless. He rarely sleeps, anymore, either stealing for himself the few hours Steven's  _not_  fucking Spike to decompress or occasionally hunt. Or to retrain Spike how to fight effectively--an oddly thankless task.  
  
  
He sits up a little straighter. Tells himself they haven't the time for or the luxury of this sort of self-indulgence, and wonders where the  _fuck_  the Monster-Boy took himself off to. He's never disappeared so completely before, that Connor can't at least sense him, if not reach him. It's becoming . . . worrisome. “Listen, I'm sorry about before. He shouldn't have said that stuff, and I lost it for a few seconds. Case closed, it happens.”  
  
  
A neat, pale hand, tipped with dark, immaculately kept nail polish settles on his knee. So much for ten and two. “But never to you, Connor.”  
  
  
If Spike expected a reaction other than Connor's continued staring out the window, Connor's careful not to give it to him. To ignore Spike's realization and his sympathy. He doesn't need or want either. He just wants . . . peace, though he knows that's asking a lot after the things he's seen and done.  
  
  
Though Steven's found his own strange peace in Spike: being with him and living for him.  
  
  
 _You're smarter than this,_  Connor thinks, blinking away more of the creeping baked-blood tinge. It intrudes at the oddest times, and with increasing frequency. Usually when Connor's aware, but not  _forward_ , and Steven's dreaming.  _Why don't you ever learn?_  
  
  
No answer.  
  
  
Eventually, the hand leaves and the car gathers speed. Outside, Dust Bowl majesty rolls indifferently by, a study in earth-tones and asphalt. Oklahoma is . . . too dry and bright, and he's glad to be leaving.  
  
  
Neither of them say anything for so long that Connor drifts. Waits for Steven to rejoin their consciousness, to come  _forward_  and smooth Spike's ruffled feathers. It isn't long--with the way Spike drives, no regard for road rules or the very stolen car they happen to be in--before Oklahoma becomes Kansas, and Connor hates it, too, because there's no discernible difference in the scenery. . . .  
  
  
Next thing he knows, the car is slowing to a stop in the exact middle of the middle of nowhere--at a deserted gas station. Spike pulls off the highway and around the back of the condemned, ramshackle restaurant set just off the pumps and cuts off the ignition.  
  
  
The sun's gasping it's last last of the day, and Spike's not one to be outdoors come nightfall.  
  
  
“Why are we stopping?” Connor asks irritably, but Spike's already out of the car and shutting the door on irritability, and the faint crunch of gravel under steel-toe work boots. He looks fundamentally foreign against the backdrop of America: all faded black denim and china-pale arms.  
  
  
He takes a long look around him, as if he's been transported to some barren, alien moon, then hops up on the hood of the car.  
  
  
Connor squints into the orangy glare and wonders if he's meant to follow, or stay behind. Steven would know, but Steven's got his head jammed up his--  
  
  
 _Fix it!_  a familiar hiss crackles into his mind, and is gone. The first sign of the Monster-Boy since that dirtbag got in their face.  
  
  
“ _You_  fix it--he's  _your_  boyfriend,” Connor mutters to himself. Sighing, he opens the passenger door and slides out. Dust puffs up from the gravel as he walks around the car, frowning at the familiarity of dry, blast-furnace heat trying to bake his exposed skin.  
  
  
He leans on the front bumper next to Spike, whose head is bowed just enough to show a strip of neck between hair and collar that's turning pink. Connor has a brief, crazy urge to kiss that spot--to run his tongue along it and taste Spike firsthand, for once.  
  
  
But the craziness . . . mostly passes, and Connor sighs again. Studies his Chucks. Time to steal a new pair. He's almost as a good thief as Steven, now. Though Spike's the one who chose and hot-wired the car. “He didn't know you, know what you've been through. He had no right to say those things about you. About either of us.”  
  
  
“No, he didn't,” Spike agrees equanimously. For Steven, it's the eyes that get him, mostly. Connor, however, finds that--under certain circumstances--he could listen to Spike's voice forever. “So are you gonna break the nose of every caveman that objects to . . . us?”  
  
  
 _Yes_. “No. No, of course not. That guy just . . . took me by surprise.” And he had. Shocked Connor out of his growing complacency with (even mild enjoyment of) Steven's fractured fairytale romance with Spike, to reality as it pertains to everyone who  _hasn't_  figured in some apocalyptic prophecy or other. The man with the now shattered nose wasn't some redneck drunk in a bar, he was just a guy, in Dockers and a button-down shirt. Just somebody's dad.  
  
  
 _He looked like_ my _dad_ , Connor thinks, and shivers, swallowing the dull hurt of the hole in him that used to be filled with family, and certainty. He does his best not to imagine what his kind, but decidedly old-fashioned father would think of Spike and Steven's relationship. Would think of  _Connor_  for allowing it and, on some levels, enjoying it.  
  
  
His mother would just want him to be happy. Would disapprove only if she could sense he wasn't.  
  
  
And Angel . . . well. Steven's memories of the man, and Connor's oddly disjointed ones suggest Angel would kill Spike first and ask questions  _never_.  
  
  
 _Then it's just as well none of them are here,_  drifts from the depths of his mind, and he's dismayed to realize it's his own voice, and not Steven's, though the difference seems to be pretty negligible, these days.  
  
  
He can feel Spike studying him, and resists the urge to just get back in the car and pretend none of this had happened. It wouldn't help anything, but sometimes a period of avoidance is necessary to allow both parties to--  
  
  
“Connor . . . today's not the first time I've been called a degenerate. Or a faggot, for that matter.” Spike snorts. “First time I was in no position to address such slights with my customary élan, though. . . .”  
  
  
Connor fights a smile, but likely not so well it goes unnoticed. A warm, dry hand settles on his. Patiently pries his fingers apart to link with them. “Thank you."  
  
  
Freeing his hand, Connor laughs humorlessly. “For what? Embarrassing you in public? Putting us on the radar? Sending some bigot to the ER for name-calling?” He laughs again. “You're welcome.”  
  
  
Spike slides off the car and sidles closer. Till he's leaning against Connor, his head on Connor's shoulder. He's a slim man with grown-out, curling hair dyed a dusty, obvious black, and the washed out complexion and too-prominent bone structure of the vaguely unwell.  
  
  
But his eyes are very, very blue when they gaze into Connor's, and the hand that yet again finds its way into his is comforting.  
  
  
“Thank you for defending my honor, such as it is."  
  
  
“I--” Connor shakes his head, turning it slightly away from Spike's face, the clean scent of Spike's hair. They--he, Steven, and Connor--all use the same soap and shampoo. It's a strangely intimate thing that Connor only remembers to notice when Spike's asleep in his arms, and Steven's drifted enough to let him come  _forward_. “I lost my temper, and slugged some guy for being a dick. In front of ninety witnesses. You were right. That's not a good thing, Spike.”  
  
  
“Oh, it's not  _smart_ , I'll grant you, mate, but . . . I think it was very good of you to do.” Spike's face is warm against his neck, his breath soft. “No one's ever done anything like that for me before. _Never_. Probably didn't think I was worth the trouble--and they were mostly right, I'll admit.” A rueful chuckle that ends when Spike straightens, and his lips press lightly against Connor's--the same kind of fairly chaste kiss that'd so angered the man with the shattered nose.  
  
  
“Brilliant, you are. The both of you.” Spike's lips brush his again before moving away, only Connor's lips are following, pursuing, till they catch Spike's once more. Till he can taste salt, and citrus and the chemical-mint of chewing gum.  
  
  
Till his hands are on Spike's waist, with no intention of letting go anytime soon.  
  
  
This is something of a revelation for Connor, who's only experienced this kamikaze sort of desire through Steven's memory, or as ghostly, secondhand sensations. None of which have prepared him for the taste of Spike's lips and mouth, or the slick, obscene, amazing way his tongue seems to be everywhere. For the way their noses brush and occasionally bash, or the way sweat prickles at the small of Spike's back or runs down the too-evident ribcage one drop at a time. . . .  
  
  
Spike's arms wind around his neck and he gasps in air between Connor's aggressive, almost angry kisses. He doesn't protest, though Connor's fingers are biting deep enough to leave bruises, and oh jesus, oh  _fuck_ , the thought of Spike wearing his bruises like a claim-- _Connor's_ claim, not Steven's--is ridiculously hot. Has him crushing Spike to him and reversing their positions.  
  
  
He barely weighs anything, does Spike, but he makes a satisfying thud when Connor bears him down to the hood of the stolen car. Denim-clad legs immediately wrap around his waist like a pleasant trap, and they're both hard and uncoordinated, rubbing against each other in an urgent way that's as much miss as hit.  
  
  
It's better than even Steven's rose-colored remembrances had led him to believe--the rough rasp of denim nearly unbearable even through Connor's pants. He's torn between wanting to come and never wanting this to end, and he's horribly certain he's muttering something to that effect against Spike's throat.  
  
  
Steven's absence, though remembered, is not lamented by either of them, it seems.  
  
  
He doesn't realize Spike's pressing something into his hand until he's leaning back to look gape-mouthed at a mostly finished tube of Astroglide.  
  
  
“What--you just happened to have this in your pocket?” Connor laughs breathlessly, taking in Spike's flushed face, distantly amused eyes and challenging smile.  
  
  
“Proper boy scout, me.” Spike's legs tighten around him, haul him closer for a wet, teasing kiss. He uses Connor's resulting distraction to roll them over. Maybe the self-defense lessons aren't so thankless, after all. “Wanna guess what I got m' merit badge in?”  
  
  
“Wilderness Survival? Archery?”  
  
  
Spike gets to his knees, and attacks his own button-fly with nimble fingers, pushing down skin-tight jeans and--Connor's only experienced giving a blowjob through Steven's memories, but he thinks he wants to try it.  
  
  
And with that sudden desire come a hundred sense memories: the way Spike tastes, the gentling way his hand rests on Steven's head in contrast to the forceful, unrelenting pace of his thrusts; the way he shakes and moans like he's about to die just before he comes--that  _sometimes_  he'll bite his lip bloody as he does--and the blissed-out, almost goofy look on his face afterward. . . .  
  
  
Spike smacks Connor on the abdomen to get his attention, and searches his eyes intently. "Why am I not surprised you were a Boy Scout? Bet you had a sash covered in badges and medals, yeah?”  
  
  
“Not  _covered_  . . . I never could get badges in Basketry or Cooking.”  
  
  
Those expressive eyebrows lift, and dart down to Connor's fly. Fingers follow suit, and have him unbuttoned and unzipped in record time. “Bloody damned show-off.”  
  
  
“Look who's talking.” Connor grins, for the first time in months and Spike returns it.  
  
  
“Lift up a mo', pet.”  
  
  
He does, and both khakis and boxers are swept down. The plastic alloy of the hood under his ass is just warm enough to be pleasant. Though not nearly as pleasant as the hot, clever hand that squeezes a hell of a lot harder than a well-raised, suburban boy should enjoy. And Spike's saying something else, but he can't hear it over his own loud groans--really, Steven's myriad adventures in The Big Gay Sex aside, it's been months since  _Connor_  got any action--and isn't about to ask him to repeat it. Not about to mess this up by giving his brain freer reign than his body.  
  
  
“Are you sure you want this . . . with me?” It just slips out, even as Spike pries the nearly crushed tube out of Connor's hand and twists the cap off--it hits the gravel and rolls out of their lives forever.  
  
  
“Pretty sure.”  
  
  
Earth and sky blur and burn around them, and Connor's arching desperately up into Spike's tight, gel-slippery fist, seeing colors that have nothing to do with the Quor'toth. ”On the hood of a Kia Sportage?”  
  
  
Another amused snort, and without letting go of Connor, Spike's reaching behind himself, his eyelids lowering to half-mast. Multi-tasking that nearly makes Connor's eyes roll back into his head. “Wouldn't be the first time, Boy Scout.”  
  
  
Irony as dry as the landscape in his voice, but it doesn't detract from the sexiness, the dark hint of purr. He grasps Spike's hips in an attempt to pull him closer, not that there could ever be _close enough_.  
  
  
Or so Connor thinks until Spike eases up his body and slowly sinks down and--  
  
  
\--he's enveloped, inch by inch, in heat that would make the Quor'toth hang its head in shame. His hands grasp and clutch at Spike's hips, holding him up, while fighting every instinct to slam him down.  
  
  
As if sensing this, Spike's eyes slit open slightly, and he smiles. “Yes, love. Just like this. Just . . . like. . . ."  
  
  
Connor nods, and focuses on controlling himself. On his promise to not ever hurt Spike. On the niggling annoyance of the windshield wipers pressing into his back. On the strange tingeing of his vision. On Spike's hands settling lightly over his own as they lower him steadily, gently, steadily, till he stops, and they're blinking at each other with identical looks of surprise.  
  
  
“This is . . . oh, God, I never--” Connor doesn't know how to finish that sentence. There are simply too many ways he could, and none of them would be close to adequate for describing how it feels to be inside Spike.  
  
  
Especially when Spike lets out a throaty laugh, and hangs his head. His dyed hair is damp on his forehead, and his cock--he's uncut, like Connor, only it looks ever so much better on him. Kissable, lickable, worshipable. Touchable, so Connor does. Runs a finger up, then down before grasping it and waiting. For some sign that Spike's ready for more.  
  
  
“You're . . . bloody keepers, the both of you,” Spike exhales a minute later, lifting himself off just a bit, and letting gravity pull him back down. Then again, and again, till Connor's doing the lifting up and pulling down, and the stroking and the squeezing. Spike's eyes are open wide, never looking away from Connor's, his hands braced on Connor's chest.  
  
  
It's wonderful.  _Perfect_ \--the tightness the heat, the way Spike's muscles clench and flutter around him, the little noises he makes, somewhere between pained and pleased. The stream of vaguely affectionate filth that pours from those pink, kiss-swollen lips. . . .  
  
  
Connor really  _could_  listen to that voice forever. . . .  
  
  
“That's very, very sweet of you to say, Connor,” Spike pants, pulling off his tee shirt and tossing it away, then leaning down to bite Connor's earlobe.  _Hard_. “Now shut up, and fuck me like you mean it, yeah?”  
  
  
 _Yeah,_  Connor thinks, only he's not sure it isn't Steven thinking it for him. Isn't sure which of them gets Spike back onto his back--has the faded black jeans literally ripped off, and is fucking him again, hard and fast in seconds. Not sure which of them leaves bruises on bony knees and pale calves, not sure which of them finds  _that_  spot, the one that makes Spike cry out, and screw his eyes shut.  
  
  
And when he comes, with  _Connor_ 's name on his lips, it hardly matters.


	5. Love . . . In All Its Cruelty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the slashthedrabble prompt “haunted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I totally don't own these guys. LAAAAAAAAME!  
> Notes: Set post-NFA by six months

There's something about you. . . .  
  
  
Something fragile, too oft' betrayed, yet . . . innocent.  This tender sensibility shines from the very core of you--haunts my dreams, my waking hours. Until I am transformed into a simulacrum of everything I once was.  Something hollow, and brittle--made real only in the eyes of a frightened monster-boy.  
  
  
Is this love?  
  
  
Yes, I have known love--tormented, one-sided, hopeless love. I have been as one obsessed: eating, breathing,  _living_  for a curve of cheek, a flash of knowing eyes--or the coy, solemn bow of exquisite lips . . . oh, I have been besotted by all these things in turn, in my time, to my lament.  
  
  
However imperfect my memory, I recall what it is to be lost to the perdition of infatuation: a chasm so deep and perfect, it knows no peace in death, and no death but utter dissolution.  
  
  
I recall . . . but am I yet  _capable_  of this love?  Have I the potential for affection deeper and fuller than mere . . . contentment?  A contentment, admittedly, to be yours alone, wheresoever thou goest?  
  
  
Is this quiet, steady trifle  _human_  love, then, and I've simply forgotten the taste of it?  
  
  
I turn over in your arms. Brush fine dark hair away from your troubled brow and wish, selfishly, that your eyes would open. How they brighten whenever you gaze upon me! A pure blue, fathomless and deep as the gulf between galaxies. Calm, in a way I cannot envy, only admire. I wish . . . oh, I wish you would waken--look at me. Tell me you love me, that I might say it back, and saying it . . . make it  _real_. . . .  
  
  
Half my wish is granted--you blink and bolt upright to search every shadow, long muscles strung tight across dense bones, fists clenched hard enough that I take them--attempt to pry them apart before they issue blood. "Where am I?"  
  
  
Wide-eyed and anxious, chest filling like a bellows, you don't seem aware that you've spoken, but I answer anyway:  _Here, love_ , and  _in our bed, love.  
  
  
With me, love.  
  
  
On Earth, love,_ and you slump forward, going limp when my arms gather you in.  
  
  
"Every time I close my eyes, I'm back there," you hitch breathlessly, pressing your damp, feverish face into my neck. You clutch at me, as if my arms are the only safe haven you've ever known, and I would give you the world, if I could. “All I want is to stay  _here_. With you.”  
  
  
"Hush, pet," I tell you, stroking your hair and kissing your face. Tasting salt and despair in the brief hiatus before your lips find mine, all of you quaking with desperation, and some great fervor I  _recall_  . . . but cannot share.  
  
  
This breast is a cold, capacious chamber for a heart too limited and empty to be worthy of yours.  
  
  
 _Love_ , I've called you--during moments of passion, of domesticity. During the lees of your nightmares--and cursed myself for a coward, and a liar every time.


	6. Two Nights, Five Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two 500 word ficlets and a series of five drabbles. Three explorations of the word "fast."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Post-NFA by eight months.

I

  
  
“You asleep?”  
  
  
Steven smirks--and it  _is_  Steven, whose range of facial expression is somewhat limited, consisting of one all-purpose glare and smirk--but keeps playing possum. “I'll take that as a no, charlatan.”  
  
  
The smirk intensifies, grows even more at odds with the dark hollows around his closed eyes, the peaky-sharpness of his features. “If you don't stop wrecking my afterglow, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.”  
  
  
Spike sits on their bed, holding out a tall glass of Pibb Xtra, something Steven hates, but will drink because Connor likes it. ( _There isn't_ , Spike reflects grimly,  _anything they wouldn't do for each other._ ) “Afterglow? And who says I'm done with you for the night, pet?”  
  
  
Steven opens his eyes, and in the sodium vapor light coming in the windows of their tiny sublet the bright blue seems faded, gunmetal-grey. But they shine with a depth of emotion that takes Spike's breath away even as a thousand regrets gnaw at him. . . .  
  
  
He supposes tonight will add one more set of teeth.  
  
  
That smirk turns into an almost-smile (Steven can't quite manage the trick, just as Connor couldn't smirk to save his life) and he takes the glass. Automatically bolts a third of it. Then another, his sodium-grey eyes never leaving Spike's.  
  
  
He holds out the glass only to jerk it away twice--soda sloshing--before letting Spike capture it. “So, are you always this energized after repeatedly violating a helpless man?”  
  
  
“Helpless?” Spike snorts and puts the glass on the night-table. His fingers have barely left it before Steven's pulling him down to the bed, wrapping him tight with steel-strong arms and legs.  
  
  
“Love,” he breathes between the sort of lingering, thorough kisses Steven specializes in. “Man cannot live by cock, alone. Not even a mutant, monster-boy, such as yourself. You need to sle--”  
  
  
“C'mon, all you have to do is get hard, and I'll--” Steven rolls them over and straddles Spike's legs, rocking back and forth distractingly . . . smirking, smirking, smirking “--do the rest.”  
  
  
Spike tries to pretend he's immune to Steven's  _Sex! Now!_  routine. To  _Steven. One_  of them has to be the adult. “Seriously, Steven. The last time I know you slept for certain was when your other half nodded off at that Citgo in Charleston. How many times since then?”  
  
  
Steven's not smirking now, not meeting Spike's eyes.   
  
  
“Not once in the past three weeks, then.” More than six times the span it'd take for the average human to go screaming 'round the twist. Spike's as horrified as he is worried. “Suffering Christ, love.”  
  
  
Steven slumps, and bites his lip. “It's nothing, I just--don't need as much . . . much . . . uh. . . .” he seems to lose his train of thought completely--then collapses on top of Spike, who grunts as the air is driven out of him.  
  
  
In the sudden silence, punctuated only by deep, quiet breaths, he's left to wonder if maybe he should've halved the dose after all.  
  
  


II

  
  
Blood-red, sunless sky above, burnt-blood dirt below--rocks covered in scorch-marks, and trees made out of cinders. Blast-furnace air, and grass too dead to burn.  
  
  
The Quor'toth.  
  
  
His memory of it, anyway. But still. . . .  
  
  
“I hate this place,” Steven mutters.   
  
  
Heavy hands settle on his shoulders. For a moment, he's certain it's Holtz.   
  
  
“Me, too.” Beat. Definitely not Holtz. “Dunno how you survived.”   
  
  
“I didn't have a choice.”  
  
  
“Point.” The hands start kneading his shoulders “So why're you back?”  
  
  
“Spike spiked my soda.”  
  
  
“What?!” The hands freeze, then yank Steven around.  
  
  
Connor is . . . thinner, shabbier. Angrier. The J. Crew look--chosen by Spike, protested by neither of them--is frayed around the edges  _and_  toward the center. Steven's own version of the outfit still looks like new.  
  
  
It's like staring into a distorted mirror--everything familiar rendered just different enough to discomfit.  
  
  
“Say  _ahhh_ ,” Connor commands, and leans in when Steven does. Tilts both their heads at odd angles. Sniffs Steven's breath for awhile before huffing out an unhappy one of his own. “Something I don't recognize. And Pibb Xtra,” he adds wistfully, stepping back.   
  
  
“Biggest glass I ever had.” Steven runs his finger along a bloody rip in the front of Connor's grimy button-down shirt. He can just glimpse the raw gouge underneath. “You're hurt.”  
  
  
Connor shrugs and scans the sky above them uneasily. “Just because they're memories, doesn't mean the monsters are less real. Let's keep moving.”  
  
  


*

  
  
  
“So . . . how is he?”  
  
  
No need to ask who 'he' is. “Spike's . . .  _Spike_. Sarcastic, tired, horny-- _sneaky_. . . .”  
  
  
“Beautiful,” Connor says, and it's not a question.  
  
  
They walk in silence for several minutes, kicking up red dust and redder insects.  
  
  
“You love him.”  
  
  
Connor doesn't smile, but he seems amused. “Maybe . . . but you loved him first.”  
  
  
Remembering that night in the museum, and the strange ripples of  _something_  that'd soothed away the driving urge to kill, Steven sighs. “I don't think I did.”  
  
  
Now Connor smiles; laughs, and there's red dirt in the laugh lines. “You love him  _best_ , then.”  
  
  
“We both do.”  
  
  
Connor snorts. “Yeah, was that before, or after I nearly killed him?”  
  
  
Steven shakes his head but doesn't makes excuses. If he hadn't battered Connor  _back_  and _below_ \--shunted him  _here_ \--the nightmares he'd been having would've cost Spike his life.   
  
  
Spike  _still_  has faint, fingers-shaped bruises on his neck.  
  
  
But. . . . “He misses you . . . so do I.” Also true, but not easy to admit.  
  
  
“It's better, this way. For Spike, especially. I mean, someone's gotta keep the inside from coming out, right?” Connor's voice is soft, but firm with the kind of miserable, unshakable resolve Angel would've been proud of.  
  
  
Having been raised by Daniel Holtz--who thankfully is  _not_  present--Steven knows a little about miserable, unshakable resolve, too.  
  
  
“We leave together, or not at all.”   
  
  
Something flickers in Connor's eyes, and he looks away. Squints up into a sun that isn't there. His grin is hard, angry.  
  
  
“We'll be here awhile, then.”  
  
  


III

Day 1

  
  
The indolent quiet is broken only by these:  
  
  
  
snowflakes hitting the cheap, un-weatherproofed windows of their flat,   
  
  
the ratchet and clank of an ancient furnace that's doing more to warm the neighborhood than the occupants of the building,   
  
  
the occasional sigh that slips out as hours crawl slowly by.   
  
  
By days end, Spike's comparing this sterile near-silence with Steven's watchful, but companionable one--a silence interspersed with kisses and touches. With soulful gazes, and smirks that are actually almost-smiles.   
  
  
 _It's a different quality of silence,_  he realizes.  _One that I miss now that it's gone, however temporarily._  
  
  


Day 2

  
  
Spike is bored.   
  
  
He misses Connor's sardonic, self-conscious loquacity, and his easy  _un_ selfconscious laughter.   
  
  
It's most of that second day before he turns on the telly. He's quick to turn it off again. Sitcoms are rubbish without their running banter as a replacement soundtrack.   
  
  
It's far better, he discovers, to watch them sleep. To chart the peaceable rise and fall of their breast, and compose overblown, but heartfelt sonnets to the way their hand rests  _just so_  upon their abdomen. . . .   
  
  
Yet when he puts pen to paper, words desert him, leaving him wistful and yearning at his lover's bedside.  
  
  


Day 3

  
  
With their guileless, clean-cut looks it's easy to forget that Steven/Connor is, appearances aside, something more than human.   
  
  
Vampire-strong, vampire-fast, vampire-durable--without the inherent susceptibility to sunlight and various holy relics--they should've thrown off the effects the sedative by now. Ground Iendas root would put a master vampire under for only a day or so. Maybe less.  
  
  
It wouldn't do worse than that to Steven and Connor.  
  
  
Or maybe it  _wouldn't have_  if they'd been getting . . . whatever constitutes a normal amount of rest for healthy Monster-Boys.  
   
  
Three days, now, and Spike is . . . concerned. . . .  
  
  


Day 4

  
  
Spike has tried everything including kisses, and kicks, but they won't wake up. Won't get hard, won't defend themselves from pinches, punches or slaps.   
  
  
“Why won't you wake up?”  
  
  
They don't even twitch. As it is their heart-rate is almost nonexistent. Spike knows this because he's spent hours with his head resting over that barely beating heart, listening for a rhythm he can  _only just_  feel.   
  
  
“If you're waitin' on me to be sorry, you can wake up now, 'cos . . . I am.”  
  
  
The only response he receives is another sluggish beat, and he's grateful for  _that_ , but--  
  
  
“ _Wake up_. . . .”  
  
  


Day 5

  
  
Like any comatose human, Steven and Connor are wasting away, Spike is certain of this.  
  
  
Only they are  _not_  human. Any doctor worth his salt will recognize that, and sharpish, too.  
  
  
No, there's only one place left to turn.   
  
  
In his ear, the phone rings and rings, as it has been for hours. Still, it's evening before someone on the other end finally picks up. “ _Prego?”  
  
  
“Come sta_, ma--yes, it's  _really, really_  me, now shut it, git, and listen.” Spike takes a breath, and the plunge. “Someone I love is very ill-- _dying_ , and . . . I need the Council's help. . . .”


End file.
